hands on it. in the recording, donald trump and michael cohen discuss hush money payments to karen mcdougal. she's a former play boy model who had an alleged affair with trump. the fbi seized the recording of trump and cohen in a raid on cohen's home and offices earlier this year that donald trump described at the time as an attack on the nation. >> i just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, good man, and it's a disgraceful situation. it's a total witch hunt. it's a disgrace. it's frankly a real disgrace. it's an attack on our country in a true sense. >> an attack on our country, wow. times writes of the significance of today's revelation. quote, the record ings' existence further draws mr. trump into questions about tactics he and his associates used to keep aspects of his personal and business life a secret. and it highlights the potential

legal and political danger that mr. cohen represents to mr. trump. once the keeper of many of mr. trump's secrets, mr. cohen is now seen as increasingly willing to consider cooperating with prosecutors. joining us by phone from "the new york times," mike schmidt who broke this story along with his colleagues. joyce vance former u.s. attorney now an msnbc contributor. with us at the table, jonathan lemire, associated press white house reporter and sliding in as only he can do, john heilman is back. got sechlt entitles i'm nven ti to read because i didn't think he would be here. if you could, underscore the significance of learning that donald trump was aware months before the election of these hush money payments to karen mcdougal. >> in early november of 2016,

w "the wall street journal" wrote an article about the payment. they said it was news to them. what the article shows is the president clearly knew about it at the time. this is something michael cohen updated him on in september. he was briefed on what was going on. this is obviously something they were trying to do to keep this quiet leading up to the election. it now raises these legal questions, whether there were campaign finance violations or campaign finance laws that were broken because these payments were made and they were not disclosed and done in secret. >> we've had a lot of conversations in the weeks and months since that cohen raid that the president described as an attack on the nation. but your colleague, maggie haberman who has a bite in on this story tweeted cohen's interview with abc got mr. trump's attention and he asked people >> phil: they thought mr. cohen was trying to send a message either to him or to the justice department. do you have any sense that your reporting today has exacerbated already pretty raw emotions about the raid and about what

mr. cohen may be choosing between in terms of his own personal legal fate? >> i think it's pretty clear that cohen wants to cooperate and that there is a huge rift between him and the president and that the president deeply concerned about this. to look at this from a bigger perspective, the president is fighting a two-front war. he has the mueller investigation in washington where his lawyers think they have a handle on the depth and breadth of that investigation, and now he has this thing going on in new york where his lawyers don't know everything that the feds are looking at. and they don't quite know what the case would be and what the actual conduct is that's under investigation. but they do know that michael cohen is out there and that he wants to cooperate. and that he apparently has some stuff that at the very least is embarrassing to the president. >> now, mayor giuliani responds in the record on the piece, nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance. he went on to say that mr. trump

had or you guys report that trump had directed cohen that if he were to make such a payment related to the woman, write a check rather than sending cash. interesting that sending cash was even on the menu so that it could be properly documented. in the big keep scheme of things, it's powerful exculpatory evidence, mr. giuliani said. tier one spin, but he seems to break some new ground here in saying, not only did the president know when he was having that conversation, but he advised him as to exactly how to make the payment, to send a check instead of a bag of cash. what's the significance of that? >> he's trying to say that the check would be more transparent. the president wasn't trying to hide anything, that he was simply -- that he knew that there was nothing wrong with what he was proposing and that they should be aboveboard about it. what he's also trying to say about not knowing about it beforehand is that he's saying the president did not know about the payments from the "national enquirer" to the model in the months before. there is no indication that

they -- on the tape this is the first time he's learning about it so that he was not involved in the payment that originally went to the model. >> but they don't deny that they've told a bucket of lies about mcdougal and stormy daniels and other women. karen mcdougal's attorney tweeted today when real donald trump said we were lying, do you think he meant we weren't? a play on his remarkable response to jonathan lemire's question sitting at the table with us. hope hicks also you have in your story, at the time she said, we have no knowledge of any of this. calling ms. mcdougal's claim of an affair totally untrue. was rudy able to acknowledge to you and your colleagues that the lies that had been told were, in effect, operative based on your reporting? >> what they say -- look, this is a political or personal problem that the president has. this is not a legal problem. that is the spin from trump world on this. that this may look bad and this

may raise questions about the president politically, but legally it has no implication because the president did not know anything about the original payment and there was never a second payment that was made to the model. but i mean, at the end of the day, whether that stands up or not, i don't know. >> i know that we don't believe rudy to be getting paid. is he now on woman gate? is he now the point of contact for questions about payments? we have the sound, i think, of him on hannity describing the operations for funneling money through cohen. let's listen to that real quick and talk about it on the other side. >> sorry, i'm giving you a fact now that you don't know. it's not campaign money. no campaign finance violation. >> they funneled it through the law firm. >> funneled through the law firm and the president repaid it. >> oh, i didn't know -- he did. >> hannity's reaction there, priceless to me, at least.

do you have any sense that they are -- that this is an active line of the investigation, the operation of funneling money as rudy giuliani describes there, to other women, even if there aren't other recordings? >> well, we know the feds want to look at this and figure out whether there was a campaign violation. there is a fight going on between the justice department and trump and trump's lawyers and cohen's lawyers about what the government can have access to. so we know that they want to look at it. they know that they want to examine it to figure whether there was a law that was violated. i think they wanted rudy out there to respond to this because the president sees rudy as his best spokesman. he believes rudy has done a lot of good for him since he came on this spring. and rudy has said a lot of different things that make this very confusing. he said things to contradict themselves. at the same time, he has helped erode the public view of the mueller investigation. and i think the president thinks

that he's his best advocate out there for him. >> let's ask joyce vance if muddying the waters and saying a lot of things to confuse things is a good legal strategy. joyce, can you weigh in on that question as well as the news that mike schmidt and his colleagues broke today in "the new york times"? >> well, whether or not it's a good political strategy, it's a terrible legal strategy. it's ineffective, it's likely to not at all impress anybody on the prosecution side of the equation. you know, here's the president two months out from the election, the access hollywood tape is out. there are other women coming forward. and a payment is made to karen mcdougal with whom he had had a 10-month affair ten years earlier to keep her quiet. there is no one who believes that that's not a payment made to affect the election. so really the only question here is whether or not they had the requisite intent and knowledge and whether it's a criminal prosecution or an administrative kind of issue. i'll just say john edwards was prosecuted for this same

violation. the government did not get a conviction in that case. this case is much stronger. the payment is much closer to the election. it's much more clearly related to the election, not as it was in the edwards case to concern about the woman. i think we have not heard the last about this yet. >> heilman, you're nodding. >> joyce makes an incredibly relevant point in that the context here is everything. and that period of time post the access hollywood tape, post all the accusations of sexual assault, sexual harassment. more than a dozen wiomen came out. that was where the campaign believed the candidacy was hanging by a thread. this was, having beaten back most of those allegations over the course of that ten days or so, having stopped republicans from defecting from his campaign, they seem to have pulled it together. this story, keeping this story from coming out a few days before the election, especially in the context, again, of what else is going on?

the comey matter with hillary clinton. suddenly it looked like the doors had opened up where trump could maybe, from their point of view, could maybe have a shot at winning this thing. it was essential to shut the story down. so the political purpose here, the desire -- the importance of this, shutting this story down at the moment when it was about to come out and what the potential consequence if they didn't were extraordinarily high. everyone on the campaign was aware of how important it was to not have another woman-related accusation that would come out, especially a credible one like this one, on the eve of the election that could turn the tide again against trump. >> joyce, let me ask you. that makes a lot of sense as somebody who worked on campaigns. is that part of an investigation? do they look at what the motive might have been and line that up with the actions that we've seen reported in "the new york times" story today? >> yeah, absolutely. for a campaign finance violation, that's critical whether you have the requisite intent to engage in manipulation of money in advance of the

campaign and influence the election. there are a lot of thorny questions here, though. the biggest problem we have right now is we haven't heard the tape. we don't know exactly what's on it, so that makes it very difficult to know what thread investigators are following. but, you know, one thing that i would stake some money on is that rudy giuliani, who apparently is not being paid by the president here, is giving the president, you know, full worth for the money that the president is paying. how insane that this is exculpatory is just a horrible idea. it really sets the president up down the road because i guarantee nothing on this tape will be exculpatory. the only reason that rudy would come out and try to dismiss this so early on is probably because this is one of the worst pieces of evidence that comes out of the search of cohen's business and residence. >> okay. let me ask a dumb question as a nonlawyer who knows everything about the law from tv. exculpatory means this is helpful information, helpful to the president's legal cause, is that what that means? >> yes.

exculpatory means facts that make it less likely that you're guilty. so, defendants always want to have exculpatory facts. and, in fact, the government is required to turnover to defendants anything that's exculpatory because it's evidence that means that it's less likely that the defendant is guilty. >> and even though rudy has not practiced law in a long time, i'm sure rudy would agree with joyce about that one thing. she knows what the word exculpatory means, although it probably doesn't apply in this case. >> legal terms for dummies. >> i was iffy on exculpatory. >> i ask everyone. i'm here for all of you. we're in this together. let me ask you, thanks in part to you, this white house has had one of the most brutal weeks i would say of the presidency. you've reported or you're reporting out on sort of the degree of alarm inside the white house among his aides. you compare it to the low points like charlottesville. talk about how this story probably landed inside the west wing today. >> sure, is that's exactly right. talking to people in donald

trump world, inside the white house but are close to the president who are comparing this week to the charlottesville week. there have been other moments. the furor of january 27 about the travel ban, family migration separation at the border. this is landing differently. this is a white house that's back on its heels and everything that happened since hell sifrsi. day after day it is condemnation from both sides of the aisle. >> their own intel. >> that's exactly right. each walk back attempt is feeble and failed to this point. >> and phony. they're walking back their own -- >> feeble, failed and phony. now we're seeing this. this is another distraction they don't need. it's another thing hanging over their hetsads. it's a steady stream of people for exits. they are having trouble finding good qualified competent people to take these jobs. this is going to make it harder. of course, hanging over all of this, what else does cohen have?

is now cohen going to cooperate? >> what would donald trump's white house rather talk about, canoodling with play boy bunnies or canoodling with vladimir putin? >> they'll take this one i think. they're okay having him canoodling with the play boy than the dictator in russia. >> why doesn't this lead to a prosecution for campaign finance? joyce is saying -- >> at this point it could cross the threshold whether there is a legal problem, not just a political one. >> mike schmidt, the other thing that they have hanging over them is the mueller investigation. can you -- you touched on this a little at the top of the show. pull the string out for us on sort of the twin pillars of the president's legal angst of these two tentacles that michael cohen seems to touch for him. >> so, cohen is being looked at in both of them. cohen's ties to russia, efforts to do business deals with them during the campaign, what that was all about. cohen is an issue there.

he's obviously an issue on the new york side. and then on top of all this, with everything that's going on, with all the stuff on cohen, the president -- whether to sit for an interview, the president's lawyers have drawn this out of their, you know, week after week saying they're very close to a decision, very close to a decision. at some point i think bob mueller is going to say, hey, enough of this back and forth. you'll have to make a decision whether to subpoena him. the question is does bob mueller want to have that fight in court before the midterms. is that something that he thinks could undermine him, i'm not sure. but that would certainly bring the issues that trump has with the investigation to the forefront and make it even more of a political issue for the president to season. >> joyce vance, let me give you a shot at trying to answer that for us. is bob mueller someone who would raise the heat on this

investigation, raise the heat in this confrontation with this president and subpoena him before the midterms? >> you know, i don't think he will, and here is why. that issue about whether the president has to respond to a subpoena, even if mueller wins, that issue becomes the product of lengthy appellate litigation. it will go first to the district judge, the trial judge. then to an intermediate appellate court, a court of appeals. and then on the way to the supreme court. that process more than likely lasts through the midterm elections, so it's just sitting there putting everything else on hold. it seems like an issue that even though it may be should be resolved as a principle of law, isn't really something that mueller needs and there's no reason to chase after it. >> hey, joyce, it's heilman. i want to ask you a quick question about the subpoena thing. >> yeah. >> there's been some speculation about the notion one reason mueller might not want to try to subpoena trump is if trump has moved from being a subject of the investigation to a target of the investigation. that there is some argument for why that would make it less likely that mueller would try to

subpoena him. is that right? >> so, you know, i'm still in this camp of people that believes mueller and the camp of institution he has surrounded himself with will indict the president. it doesn't make it possible for trump to be indicted after he leaves office. i always thought that was one of the reasons that made a subpoena for testimony less likely because if he did talk to a grand jury under a subpoena now, none of that testimony would be available to prosecute him at some point in the future when he leaves office. now we hear that the state of new york is potentially looking at criminal charges related to the trump foundation. that could hinder their prosecution, too. i just think it's unlikely that he receives a subpoena. >> all right. fridays, joyce vance takes us to law school. thank you for spending time with us. when we come back, an attorney for another woman who paid money by donald trump joins us to discuss breaking news.

also donald trump's war on intelligence may be backfiring. the malaise in the west wing as the top intelligence officials laugh at his stunning embrace of vladimir putin. and is rod rosenstein getting his groove back? he was greeted with a standing ovation from national security experts and he appears to be finding his c-legs after months of being on the receiving end of attacks from the president. but is he safe? most people. but on the inside, i feel chronic, widespread pain. fibromyalgia may be invisible to others, but my pain is real. fibromyalgia is thought to be caused by overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. i'm glad my doctor prescribed lyrica. for some, lyrica delivers effective relief from moderate, to even severe fibromyalgia pain and improves function. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions, suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worse depression, unusual changes in mood or behavior,

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i didn't do anything wrong. it's really nice. >> is he still your friend? >> i always like michael cohen. >> is he still your lawyer? >> not my lawyer, any more. but i always liked michael and he's a good person and i think he's been -- excuse me, do you mind if i talk? you're asking me a question, i'm trying to ask it >> just wonder if you're worried he's going to cooperate -- >> no, because i did nothing wrong. >> not worried because i did nothing wrong, but it's an attack on the nation. we've been discussing breaking news from "the new york times" today the fbi has seized a recording of a conversation between donald trump and michael cohen about a hutch money payment to play may karen mook dougal. michael avenatti, the attorney for stormy daniels also locked in a legal battle with the president over hush money says it's not the only potentially incriminating recording out there. he joins us now, we're happy to see him back. also joining the table emily jane fox senior reporter for vanity fair and msnbc contributor. michael, take us through your

thoughts on the reporting today. >> i'm not surprised by it -- >> you predicted it if i remember in one of your early appearances in this program. >> not only did i predict it, i sta sta stated it on may 30. almost two months ago i demanded their release. i then went on msnbc and cnn and discussed the existence of these tapes. so, you know, i think it's great that it's getting all this attention 7, 8 weeks later. this really isn't breaking news, nicolle. i disclosed the existence of these tapes tudev montwo months. >> i'll let you write the banners on the bottom of the screen next time. whether we describe it as breaking news or not, take me through the little import of having it confirmed by the president's own lawyer rudy giuliani that the president did, indeed, have knowledge two months before the election is what "the new york times" is reporting of the existence of payments and he was so steeped

in the payment conversation that he suggested paying with a check rather than cash. to me that seems to be the kind of statement that will cause more problems down the road. who is getting cash payments if he was considering that as an option? just take me through the response from donald trump and his lawyers today. >> well, i agree with you, nicolle. i think that's going to pose a problem. but look, i want to be really clear about something. this is not the only recording. there are multiple, multiple recordings. our position is they should all be released. they should all be released now. it's obvious to me and it should be obvious to anyone that knows anything about this case where this recording came from. michael cohen and his attorneys leaked this particular recording to "the new york times." i mean, i know it and anybody that's paying attention knows it. it's obvious. it obviously did not come from the southern district of new york and i believe i know the reason why they leaked this particular recording to "the new

york times," which is one of many. >> what is the reason? we have information on who leaked it and "the new york times" does not address that. i want to be clear to our viewers that's your position. but tell us why you think this particular recording was leaked. >> because it's one of many recordings, and it was leaked as a further shot across the bow aimed at donald trump and the white house to let them know that if they don't play ball with michael cohen and get him in the tent very, very quickly, that there is going to be significant fallout. and you've seen a progression over the last few weeks of these continual warning shots aimed at donald trump. you know, we've heard from lanny davis and others that michael cohen, he's a patriot. he loves his country. he's going to put his country and his family above all else. well, look, if that's true, he should disclose all of the tapes and all of the evidence. there is nothing stopping him from doing it. the fbi is not prohibiting him

from doing it. the southern district of new york is not prohibiting him from doing it. i mean, he should do it. >> let me ask you about something that sam nunberg said. he's a former campaign aide to donald trump. and he said in an interview about his time -- his interview with the special counsel. he said, ari melber asked about payments to women. they were asking if i knew anything about it. they asked if you knew anything about payments to women. nunberg said it's obvious they're looking into this. steve bannon says allegedly in fi "fire and fury," one of the early lawyers took care of hundreds of women. remind me and remind our viewers that beyond potential campaign finance violations, what sort of legal peril could payments to women represent for the president? >> well, the key -- >> and i'm sorry to interrupt, but why would bob mueller be asking the president's aides about payments to women? >> the key, nicolle, is how the

money flowed from one place to another and how it was handled, whether it be by money laundering techniques, whether it be by bank fraud potentially relating to the opening and closing of various accounts, for instance. we know that the account that michael cohen opened at first republic bank, it's clear now that he lied to the bank in connection with the purpose of that account. i believe he stated it was for real estate consulting purposes. he lied to the bank about how many transactions were expected to occur in that account. that could potentially give rise to bank fraud. so the key here is, separate and apart from the campaign finance violations or potential violations, is the flow of the money and how it flowed in and out of these accounts and how they'd payments were made. and i happen to agree with you, by the way, your observation that cash was even on the table was even an option when you're talking about $150,000 payment. that in and of itself is

disturbing. >> okay. and let me ask you, emily, to respond. "the new york times" is updating the updated story saying giuliani called back. trump and cohen were discussing buying the rights to mcdougal's story from the enquirer, effectively reimbursement. there is a large body of reporting about the symbiotic relationship between donald trump and michael cohen and ami. if you could just speak to -- and you've done some of that exquisite reporting about just how interconnected, how they really functioned as one when it came to protecting donald trump and attacking anyone that may represent, as heilman said, a threat to him in those final days and weeks before the election. >> it's interesting, michael cohen has been friends with michael pecker longer than donald trump and david pecker. >> it was cohen's relationship. >> it was all of their relationships. that speaks to how interconnected -- >> hannity was another one of cohen's clients and he also did a lot of this work, defending the president, attacking the

accuser, attacking people who criticized him. >> it was all hands on deck. this was a period of time where it was incredibly important to keep the story out of the news and everyone was there to help keep it under wraps. i will say from people i spoke to today around cohen's orbit, this is something that they see is coming from the president's camp that this was a complete strategy executed in order to throw cohen under the bus. and so they see it very differently than mr. avenatti sees it. this was something that they think -- >> how is cohen under the bus based on today's reporting? >> they are controlling the nehr 2i678 of what is on this tape. michael cohen and his attorney will not comment on what is on this tape. this is not something that they're looking to get involved in at all right now. >> cohen is looking for some sort of deal from the southern district. doesn't it help to show -- >> the southern district has the tape. the southern district has the transcript. the southern district already knows what is on that transcript. what we know, the public, about what is on that tape is what president trump's lawyer has

commented on about. so that narrative is controlled right now solely by rudy giuliani. so we don't know what michael cohen's side will say is on that tape. i have reason to believe that story may be different than the one we have out tonight. >> just sort of bring us into whether or not these relationships still exist for the president. he says on the tape we just ran, no, michael cohen, haven't talked to him forever. we know on friday the week his offices were raided, donald trump called him. so he only shuts down these relationships usually for a spell of time and often not completely. >> right. certainly truism in trump world that you're out only as long as -- >> until you're back in again. >> everyone out ends up back in. >> steve bannon manages to be out. i'm sure at some point he'll come back, too. with cohen, certainly before that, he was seen with melania trump at mar-a-lago a short time before that. others can speak to it, too,

that relationship does not exist at this moment. rudy giuliani has said publicly the two don't speak. he would not advise the president to speak to cohen with all this going on. but certainly the relationship dates a long time and it's not just that cohen, of course, knows a lot of things, but this is how trump deals with people. he uses them while they're useful and then he casts them aside. and right now cohen presents a real jeopardy to this president and it has been interesting to watch how that plays out publicly. we've seen trump distance himself from him different times on the fox and friends interview, the clip you just played. didn't we see the national inquirer story, part of the president's bidding. there does seem to be this sort of like cat and mouse game as to who is going to land what attack first. >> "the new york times" had a pretty detailed account of just how badly the president treated michael cohen over the course of even the high water marks of their business relationship. so this isn't someone, even

though he said he'd take a bullet for the president, i don't see all of the inputs that donald trump made to that relationship. >> i think it would be fair to say if you step back and look from 30,000 feet that the high water mark of the trump/cohen relationship was years ago. it's been in steady decline. michael cohen thought he was going to be an important part in the 2016 campaign. did not. thought he would get a position in the white house. did not get it. i would say in a desperate pathetic way he was pining after trump for months and months and months after trump had long used up what he was going to get out of michael cohen and cast him aside. the only reason donald trump kards about michael cohen is he looked up and said oh, my god, this guy who once upon a time was intimately involved in all the stuff i was doing, not much legal work. the most interesting thing about the white house lawn tape, trump says, my lawyer? what do you mean my lawyer? he hasn't been my lawyer for a while. i don't think trump ever thought of cohen as his lawyer.

he was his biz guy flying around the world trying to stack trump names on top of buildings and do dirty deals in various countries around the world that had little to do with lawyering. suddenly trump looks up and sees himself at legal risk and realizing for once in his life, someone who he has abused and used has suddenly come back to haunt him in a really inopportune time and lethal way. suddenly he's scrambling around trying to throw some more love at him at various times. throw shade at him at various times. trying to intimidate him, trying to scare him, seduce him, whatever will work at this point. but this is not a clean relationship. and certainly there has been a giant disparity in terms of the way in which the two parties have felt about each other for quite a long time. and it's part of why this is such a precarious moment for trump and for cohen for that matter. >> it's a hallmark of many of the president's relationships why he finds himself where he is. look in the mirror, mr. president. we're going to ask everyone to stick around. when we come back, a new

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we have something we rolled out from the only in the time of trump files for you. breaking news, nbc news has confirmed a report that manhattan madam kristen davis is being subpoenaed by robert, special counsel robert mueller. going to read this to you so i get it just right. davis, the manhattan madam, just told nbc news that someone in robert mueller's office called her lawyer yesterday to ask if she would accept a subpoena or if the fbi would need to serve her. her lawyer called back today and said she accepted, but has no more detail. for them to come to me on information in russian collusion, i don't have that. but she adds, i worked for roger stone many years. ding, ding, ding, madam. i've been with rogers since 2010 doing web design and multi talented, madam.

i can't believe i'm reading this. heilman, say something. >> as the -- >> heilman is speechless. >> we've been focused for a while. i don't like the noose tightening metaphor. roger stone is in deep trouble and he's been -- >> why? >> because of the fact -- >> he was the colluder? >> we don't know. >> really? >> he's been in touch -- there is question about what he knew about gucifer 2.0. that questions is still unresolved. we know on the basis of the indictment a week-and-a-half -- only been a week, mueller indictment of the russian grus, he was in touch with gucifer among others. we don't know what roger stone knew about gucifer. that's still to be shown. the pattern over time, timing of communications, the papt earn so many people around stone have been subpoenaed, have been brought into the mueller probe and that he has not been interviewed yet is such a sign that he is a target.

and to have this woman who is a relatively obscure figure in roger stone's political world, madam of manhattan, now being dragged in, they haven't spoken to him one more sign mueller has his sights trained on roger stone and he has an indictment or more than one indictment coming his weighed fairly soon. >> joyce, let me ask you to explain some something to me, they don't have anything to do about how madam is a web designer. >> if she can explain that, that would be the ding-ding-ding of the day. >> joyce, explain to me, first of all, it sounds like she said she would appear and answer questions. so perhaps she avoids being subpoenaed. i understand that to be a tool you use if a witness is unwilling. but also explain what heilman is alluding to, this idea that around roger stone is sort of a crushing effort to learn everything from everyone that may have seen something or known something about his contacts with russians. >> so, i agree with heilman.

you know, it looks like roger stone's time in the barrel is just about upon him. he has not been interviewed, which as we've discussed previously is a strong indication that he's a target of this investigation. and i would add to john's questions about roger stone, in my mind, the biggest unknown is what was stone communicating to trump about this entire process he was involved with gucifer in? were they conferring about it regularly? did trump know the details? if so, this looks a lot more ominous. so, it seems likely that mueller is tying down his case against stone, and for whatever reason, the madam turned graphic designer will play some role in that investigation. >> she's graphic in a number of different ways. >> michael avenatti -- no, no, stop. michael avenatti, save us. you're a lawyer. weigh in. >> well, evidently the first

choice for web designer had a headache. >> oh, god, you guys, thank god it's friday. >> look, here's what i'll say. with each passing day and each passing subpoena -- and i will tell you there is a host of subpoenas that have not been reported on and i'll just leave it at that. this situation becomes worse and worse for roger stone, worse and worse for michael cohen, and far worse for the president. the problem is, and i've been saying this for a while, the president trusted his innermost secrets to a fixer in michael cohen who wasn't smart enough and tough enough to serve in that role. you know, sooner or later, things like this come back and bite you and i think that that's what you're seeing. and it is remarkable to me, nicolle, and i think john touched on this earlier. what is most remarkable to me is this. if you know that you've got a guy that has your innermost secrets and is this dangerous, he's probably one of the first

people you give a job to in your new white house. he's one of the first people you bring into the tent and you make sure he's taken care of. and the fact that michael cohen was not taken care of shows the fact that donald trump is not smart. he's dumb when it comes to this. he's arrogant when it comes to these things. and it's going to come back and it's going to bite him. >> i know you and michael disagree on the recording. do you agree with his assessment about his treatment of michael cohen? >> absolutely. the people who are closest to michael cohen told me today that today was another example of how dumb strategists, the people around the president are. because to alienate him further at a time where he's so clearly indicated he wants to cooperate is just the sillyest decision you can ever make. >> michael avenatti, emily jane fox, thank you for spending time with us. when we come back in the dark, we still don't know what happened between donald trump and vladimir putin behind closed doors in helsinki. apparently neither does the military.

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i do want to say we have some breaking news. the white house has announced on twitter that vladimir putin is coming to the white house in the fall. >> say that again? [ laughter ] >> vladimir putin is coming -- >> did i hear you? >> yeah, yeah. >> okay. [ laughter ] >> that's going to be special. >> that was one of the most amazing things i've seen on television. between your question monday in helsinki and andrea's interview yesterday of dan coats, two remarkable, remarkable events. and to be a fly on the wall in the oval office watching tv when that happened. if you saw it and didn't immediately worry about dan coats' job security, you haven't been paying attention. washington post reports inside the white house trump's advisors

were in an uproar over coats's interview in aspen. he appeared to be laughing at the audience playing to the intellectual elite in a manner sure to infuriate trump. he was going rogue. joining us at the table, evan mcmullen, operative who ran for president as an independent. jonathan swan, i'm sure you have your own vast body of reporting about how this week has gone down inside the white house. if you could just speak to what these moments are like for the president when among people that he would like to approve him, despite all of his railing against the elites and the media, he pays very close attention to how the elites and the media score him and judge him and what they say about him. so i'm sure that seeing coats so well received got under his skin. >> i haven't discussed this with the president, so i don't -- i can't speak to his --

>> safe answer, safe answer. >> i'm just being honest with you. but at this moment, i, too, spoke to senior officials including one in real time while it was happening. the reaction was basically, he's got to go. he's got to go. he's got to be fired. this is a sort of preemptive anticipation of how the president is going to react based on their experience previously. look, if you were going to create a moment to engineer someone being fired by president trump, you can't do much better than going to aspen among at nation at security and foreign elite and being in on the joke that there is this guy who nobody in the room has much respect for who is conducting foreign policy in, again, universally acknowledged among the people in the room, a reckless way. and then dan coats made, i

thought four pretty stunning points, although people who pay attention to the intelligence won't find them that stunning. the first one was he thought it was a mistake for the president to meet alone with vladimir putin. the second is that he obviously was dismayed by what the president said. the third, that he didn't know about the russians being invited. but the fourth, which i thought was the most important, and is really the revalatory point, the nation's spy chief doesn't know what was said between president trump and president putin in a one on one meeting. that is stunning. >> that is stunning. and i think jonathan swan just hit on the lasting damage from this meeting because a lot of other -- the other critiques can be sort of excused away as a break with convention. i think donald trump has a good case for saying, well, we didn't need all those conventions, but not this one. let me read you something from the washington post today.

days before the summit meeting military officials pressed the national security council for mr. trump's proposed talking points and received no response. the lack of information handcuffed general joseph voto, central command on thursday who said, quote, we have received no further direction than we've currently been operating under. so we now have the said of central command with no idea what military -- and we know that there were -- arms treaties came up. they discussed -- it sounds like they discussed whatever putin wanted to discuss. the president, i've heard no reporting or pushback that putin drove the agenda for the two-hour secret meeting. but can you just speak to what a crossroads we're at when the military, and the president's title is commander in chief for a reason, but the military he commands has no idea what commitments he made to an american adversary. >> there's a general disconnect, a general sort of divergence of the federal government and

donald trump. you have most of the federal government still sort of maintaining -- keeping its oath to the american people, keeping its oath to the country, defending us against foreign adversaries, including especially russia, and then you have the president who has his own personal agenda that we're trying to learn more about. we're trying to learn what drives that. let me tell you, what i see happening here is now the president is doubling down on putin, on that relationship. he's inviting him back to washington. to many of us that seems crazy. why would he do that leading up to the midterms? why would he do that at all? the numbers actually tell us why. only 55% of americans disagree with the way trump is handling this relationship of the 71% of republicans support it. he's looking at those numbers saying i got these numbers -- the numbers are pretty good and moving in my direction and he wants to move them further in that direction. >> national security used to be a place where your poll numbers didn't matter. i mean for better or for worse. and jonathan, i know a lot of

this reporting is yours and these are axios' poll numbers and you've been reporting on this all week so i know it to be true. let me just ask you, the president's own national security appointees don't seem moved by the poll numbers, thank god. and there's a lot of sort of conversation right now about how christopher wray, when asked by lester holt have you ever thought about resigning didn't say he hadn't. rod rosenstein got a standing ovation notably before he opened his mouth in aspen. dan coats, the four examples you cite and the overall cents that he didn't feel shackled. he didn't pretend donald trump was normal or that donald trump was doing a good job. what is the collective feeling among the white house staff about the fact that donald trump's own appointees who had arguably the most important government agencies, the ones in charge of our military, our intelligence, our law enforcement, are no longer pretending that donald trump isn't ridiculous? >> well, i think some of them are still pretty buttoned up,

kirstjen nielsen being a prominent example. >> because she said there's no evidence russia wants to attack our elections. >> she was parsing her words very carefully. more broadly, yes. one thing we are finding more and more often when we talk to people who work in the white house or at a senior level in the administration is we'll ask them why did trump do this thing, whatever it might be, whether it's the helsinki press conference or whatever. look, in the early days of the administration, you could expect an answer that rationalizes and tells you game theory. now they're just like -- it's trump. they sort of have stopped bothering trying to explain him. and also really stopped pretending that they know what's going on or what's going to ha. it makes reporting very difficult because no one really knows anything. >> heilemann, i don't even know

what to ask you. >> first of all, jonathan swan, that noise that he made, it's very troubling. secondly, you must get ptsd every time the phrase "going rogue" comes up. the phrase with coats. >> that means going the other direction, it doesn't mean going toward responsible governing. here's what happened this week. this is why this week was a good week. it was a good week in america. >> oh, yeah? >> at the beginning of the week because of this guy and some other folks over in helsinki, everybody got to see the degree of leverage, we don't know exactly what it is, but the degree of leverage that vladimir putin has over donald trump was laid bare on the international stage in the glare of the hot lights with everybody watching. and after all the walk-backs and nonwalk-backs, we got to see it again. at the end of the week when

trump should have been embarrassed and humiliated and trying to put distance between himself and putin, he came out and said he's going to invite him to washington and give him a big, fat reward for hacking with our election and messing with our democratic processes. there's no one in the country who's not impaired or a moron who doesn't see that donald trump is in the bag for vladimir putin at the end of this week. that's why people like david ignatius and other people have been saying something that i think is fundamentally true. you could hear the fabric of the presidency ripping this week. when we look back on this moment in history, this is the week when even the people who were in the dark, who wanted to be in the dark, who were praying that it wasn't true, who have willful blindness or whatever, they couldn't imagine somehow, as many of them critics of donald trump's, couldn't imagine that he could really be in the bag for the russian president, the former kgb spymaster, no one who's sensible can deny it now because we saw it on monday and then after all this we saw it

again in spades on friday. it's an embarrassment to anybody who can't acknowledge that fundamental truth. >> 30 seconds. >> i agree that it's patently enclosure that t clear that the president is under the control of vladimir putin. i think it's been clear for a long time. i think more people are being woken up to that. but the reality is, the numbers are not moving in the right direction. the reality is, again i'll say only 55% of americans oppose the way trump is handling his relationship with russia. so there are a lot of people who actually aren't following this very closely and they generally support what trump is doing. that is extremely dangerous. that is something we have to think about, because ultimately this will come down to a political question, a political process in congress to hold the president accountable. the politics really matter. >> all right. we have to sneak in our very last break. don't go anywhere. we will all be right back.

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just on this week that was because you put a lot of it in motion. >> i appreciate that. i think this is going to be looked back as one of the defining weeks of this administration, where a lot of this was brought to light, the relationship with putin, his refusal to condemn russians and support his own intelligence agencies. it's going to have ramifications. we'll see it play out over the months and years ahead. >> my thanks to jonathan swan, joyce vance, john heilemann, jonathan lemire. "mtp daily" starts right now with katy tur. >> wait a minute. i didn't have the jonathan swan noise. >> there it is. >> it's going to show up. >> off camera, john heilemann. anyway, thank you, guys. thank you, nicolle. if it's friday, lordy, there's a tape. tonight recording revelation. we'll dig into the legal and